The video points out the logical contradictions of reductionism ("the mind is nothing but the brain, which is nothing but a biological machine, which nothing but etc..."). This is something of a change of direction for this magazine, which has previously tended to support physicalism and scientism.

What the video is saying is that all attempts at reductionism end in circularity, and you need consciousness to explain consciousness (a philosophical position known as Ontologicial Mysterianism).

I have a few quibbles about oversimplification, but maybe this is necessary to get the message across. The video concentrates exclusively on structure, and ignores process and operations. This becomes apparent in the oversimplification of the Von Neumann derivation of numbers, where numbers spontanously appear out of nothing. In fact it is the operation of the mind on the empty set which produces these numbers.

The video is saying that...

- Mathematics is reducible to mind.- Mind is reducible to biological macromolecules.

- Biological macromolecules are reducible to organic chemicals.

- Organic chemicals are reducible to atoms.

- Atoms are reducible to mathematics.

- Mathematics is reducible to mind.

... which is where we came in!

I would reformulate this as ...

- The structures and operations of mathematics are reducible to the concepts and operations of the mind.

- The structures and operations of the mind are reducible to the structures and operations of biological macromolecules.

- The structures and
operations of biological macromolecules are reducible to the structures
and operations of organic chemicals.

- The structures and operations of organic chemicals are reducible to the structures and operations of atoms.

- The structures and operations of atoms are reducible to the structures and operations of mathematics.

- The structures and operations of mathematics are reducible to the concepts and operations of the mind... (deja vu)

This is, of course, another illustration of emptiness, in that no rock-bottom foundation for any phenomenon is findable.